2002年英语专八听力原文文本

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　　SECTION A TALK

　　The first area in American urban history extended from the early 17th century to about 1840. Throughout those years the total urban population remained small and so with the cities. At the first federal censors in 1790, city dwellers made up nearly 5.1% of the total population and only two places had more than 25000 inhabitants. Fifty years later only 10.8% of the national population fell into the urban category and only one city, New York, contained more than 250000 people. Largely because of the unsophisticated modes of transportation, even the more populous phrases in the early 19th century remained small enough that people could easily work from one end of the city to the other in those days.

　　Though smaller in modern standards these working cities, as it were, performed variety of functions in those days. One was economic. Throughout the pre-modern era, this part of urban life remained so overwhelmingly commercial that almost every city owed its development to trade.

　　Yet city dwellers concerned themselves not only with promoting agricultural activities in their own areas, they also collected and processed goods from these areas and distributed them to other cities. From the beginning line and increasingly in the 18th and early 19th centuries, city served as centres of both commerce and simple manufacturing.

　　Apart from the economical functions, the early cities also had important non-economic functions to play. Since libraries, museums, schools and colleges were built and needed people to go there to visit or to study, cities and the large early towns with their concentrations of population tended to serve as centres of educational activities and its policy from which information were spread to the countryside. In addition, the town with people of different occupational, ethnic, racial and religious filiation became focuses of formal and informal organizations which were set up to foster the security and to promote the interests and influence of each group. In these days the pre-industrial city in America functioned as a complex and varied organizing element in American life, not as a simple, homogeneous and sturdy union.

　　The varieties of these early cities were reinforced by the nature of their location and by the process of town spreading. Throughout the pre-industrial period of American history, the city occupied sites on the eastern portion of the then largely under-developed continent, and settlement on the countryside generally followed the expansion of towns in that region. The various interest groups in each city tended to compete with their counterparts in other cities for economic, social and political control first nearby and later more distant and larger areas. And always there remained the underdeveloped regions to be developed through the establishment of new towns by individuals and groups. These individuals and groups sought economic opportunities or looked for a better social, political or religious atmosphere. In this sense, the cities builder had development of succession of urban frontiers. While this kind of circumstance made Americans one of the most prolific and self-conscious city building peoples of their time, it did not resort the steadily urbanizing society in the sense that decade by decade and ever larger proportion of the people lived in cities.

　　In 1690 an estimated 9 to 10 percent of American colonists lived in urban settlements. A century later, that was the end of the 18th century, though 24 places had 2 500 persons or more, city dwellers accounted for only 5.1% of the total population. For the next thirty years, the proportion remained relatively stable and it was not until the 1830 did the urban figure moved back up to the level of 1690.

　　In short, as the number of cities increased after 1690, they sent large number of people into countryside and they retained. Nonetheless the continuous movement of people into and out of the cities made life in the many but relatively small places lively and stimulating.

　　SECTION B INTERVIEW

　　M: I'm talking to Janet Holmes who has spent many years negotiating for several well-known national and multi-national companies. Hello, Janet.

　　W: Hello.

　　M: Now Janet. You've experienced and observed the negotiation strategies used by people from different countries and speakers of different languages. So before we comment on the differences, could I ask you to comment first of all on what such encounters have in common?

　　W: OK, well, I'm just going to focus on the situations where people are speaking English in international business situations.

　　M: I see. Now, not every one speaks English to the same degree of proficiency. So, maybe that affects situations.

　　M: Yes, perhaps. But that is not always so significant. Well, because, I mean, negotiations between business partners from different countries normally mean we have negotiations between individuals who belong to distinct cultural traditions.

　　M: Oh, I see.

　　W: Well, every individual has a different way of performing various tasks in everyday life.

　　M: Yes, but. but isn't it the case that in the business negotiation, they must come together and work together to a certain extent. I mean, doesn't that level up the style of , the style of differences or somewhat?

　　W: Oh, 1 am not so sure. I mean there's people in the so-called Western World who say that in course of the past 30 or 40 years, there were a lot of things had changed a great deal globally, and that as a consequence, national differences had diminished. We have got fewer, giving way to some sort of international Americanized style.

　　M: Yeah, I've heard that. Now some people say this Americanized style has acted as a model for local patterns.

　　W: Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. Because on the one hand, there does appear to be a fairly unified even uniform style of doing business with certain basic principles and preferences, you know, like "time is money", that sort of thing. But at the same time, it is very important to remember the way all retain aspects of national characteristics. But it is actual behavior that we will talk about here. We shouldn't be too quick to generalize that to national characteristic and stylistic type. It doesn't help much.

　　M: Yeah. You mentioned Americanized style. What is particular about American style of business bargaining or negotiating?

　　W: Well. I've noticed that, for example, when Americans negotiate with people from Brazil, the American negotiators make their points in a direct, sophistical way.

　　M: I see.

　　W: While Brazilian make their points in a more indirect way.

　　M: How?

　　W: Let me give you an example. Brazilian importers look at people they're talking to straight in the eyes a lot. They spend time on what some people thinks to be background information. They seem to be more indirect.

　　M: Then, what about the American negotiators?

　　W: American style of negotiating, on the other hand, is far more like that of point-making, first point, second point, third point, and so on. Now of course, this isn't the only way in which one can negotiate and absolutely no reason why this should be considered as the best way to negotiate.

　　M: Right. Americans seem to have different styles, say, even from the British, don't they?

　　W: Exactly, which just show how careful you must be about generalizing. 1 mean, how asking you explain how the American negotiators are seen as informal, and sometimes much too open. For British eyes, Americans are direct even blunt.

　　M: Is that so?

　　W: Yeah, at the same time, the British too. German negotiators can appear direct and uncompromising in the negotiations, and yet if you experience Germans and Americans negotiating together, it is often the Americans who are being too blunt for the German negotiators.

　　M: Fascinating! So people from different European countries use different styles, don't they?

　　W: That's right.

　　M: OK. So what about the Japanese then? I mean, is their style different from the Americans and Europeans?

　　W: Oh, well, yes, of course. Many Europeans nod its extreme politeness of their Japanese counterparts, the way they avoid giving the slightest defense, you know. They're also very reserved to people they don't know well. At the first meetings American colleagues have difficulties in finding the right approach sometimes. But then when you meet the Japanese negotiators again, this initial impression tends to disappear. But it is perhaps true to say that your average Japanese business person does choose his or more really her words very carefully.

　　M: So can we say that whatever nationalities you are dealing with, you need to remember that different nationalities negotiate in different ways?

　　W: Well, it's perhaps more helpful to bear in mind the different people behave in negotiating in different ways. And you shouldn't assume that everyone will behave in the same way that you do.

　　M: Right. It is definitely a very useful tip for our businessman who often negotiate with their overseas partners. OK, Janet, thank you very much for talking with us.

　　W: Pleasure.

　　SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

　　News Item One (For Question 11)

　　The first International Tibetan Traditional Medicine Conference will be held July 15th to 17th in Lasha, capital city of Tibet autonomous region. China's Ethnic Medicine Institute, Tibetan Bureau and Tibetan Medical College will co-host the conference. The conference has received more than 500 research papers from China and abroad. The organizing committee primarily selected 290 articles to be discussed at the conference. More than 50 foreign guests from United States, Russia. Britain, India. Germany, France, Italy and Nepal will attend the meeting. The Chinese mainland has sent delegation consisting of 250 Tibetan medicine experts to the conference.

　　News Item Two (For Questions 12—13)

　　The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region were actively adopting information technology and building an electronic government, a senior Hong Kong official said yesterday. This is an integral part of Hong Kong's Digital 21 Strategy formulated in 1998 to make Hong Kong both a regional and world-wide internet centre, said Carrion, secretary for information technology and broadcasting. She outlined three policy objectives in developing an e-government in Hong Kong at the IBM Asian Pacific E-government Executive Seminar. The first policy objective is to develop an electronic and paperless government so as to improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness and quality of public services. The second is to promote the wide adoption of e-commerce with the government setting a leading example. The third is, through the e-government program, to integrate service delivery across multiple department and agencies.

　　News Item Three (For Questions 14—15)

　　Canadian Olympic 100-meter champion Donovan Bailey showed he was on his way back to the top form on Tuesday by winning 100-meter at the athletic meeting in Switzerland in the time of 9.98 seconds. Despite unfavorable windy conditions. Bailey recorded the second best time of the year short of the 9. 91 set by double world champion Moris Greene of the United States on May 13th in Nosoka, Japan. "I would have run 9.80 if I'd really pushed myself." said Bailey, 1996 Olympic and 1995 world champion. The Canadian has been fighting for form before the Sidney Olympics, following a long-term injury which resulted in a disappointing series of starts in the season.

　　SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING

　　Good morning, today well look at some study activities carried out in university as we know, students in colleges or universities are expected to master some academic materials that are fairly difficult to understand. However, some of them find it hard to learn some complex, abstract or unfamiliar subject matter. As a result, a central problem in higher education is how to internalize academic knowledge, that is, how to make knowledge your own. In order to do so we must convert knowledge from being other's knowledge to being part of our own way of thinking.

　　Then how are we going to do it? What's the means available to help us in the process of learning? There are four key study activities currently used in higher education to encourage students to internalize knowledge. They are the ones we are familiar with: writing essay, going to classes and seminars, having individual tutorials and listening to lectures. The four activities are long-established features of our higher education, and they are as important now as they were a hundred years ago. Now let's look at the features of them one by one.

　　First, essay writing. The central focus of university work, especially in humanities, for example in literature, history or politics, is on students' producing regular essays or papers which summarize and express their personal understanding of the topic. Then what is good about essay writing? Firstly, writing essays forces you to select what you find interesting in books and journals and to express your understanding in the coherent form. Individual written work also provides teachers with the best available guide to how you are processing in the subject, and allows them to give advice on how to develop your strengths or counteract your weaknesses. Lastly, of course, individual written work is still the basis of almost all assessment in higher education. Written assignments familiarize you with the form of your exams or course what papers will take.

　　The second key activity in colleges and universities is seminars and class discussions. Their role is to help you to internalize academic knowledge by providing specialized contexts so that you can talk about such difficult problems as the treat of between inflation and the unemployment in economic policy or the use of the metaphors in Shakespeare's plays. Talking is a more interactive activity than written work. In the conversation you know immediately how effective you are in expressing your point and can modify what you are saying in response to people's reactions. In addition, a normal program of between 10 to 25 classes will cover far more topics than one subject. Then you can hope to manage your written work. Participating in flexible conversations across this range of issues also allows you to practice using the broader knowledge gained from other key activities such as lectures.

　　Now let's take a look at another activity, individual tutorials. Discussions between the teacher and one or two students are used in many colleges as a substitute for or supplement to group discussion in classes like those mentioned before. Tutorials can range from direct explanation by teacher and subject to flexible conversational sessions which at their best very effective in stimulating students' mastery of body of knowledge. The one-to-one quality of the personal interaction is very important in stimulating acceptance of ideas and producing fruitful interaction. In order to make individual tutorial really work, students should make good preparation beforehand, and during the tutorial they also should ask questions to keep the ball rolling rather than let the teachers talk the vacuum.

　　The last activity is lectures. As we all know, lectures play a large part of most students' timetable and occupy considerable proportion of teachers' efforts. However the major difficulty with lectures is that they are not interactive like discussion or tutorials. The lecturer normally talks for the whole time with minimal feed-back from questions. The signs making notes the lecture well-concentrating on the argument being developed is often difficult to some students, especially when the argument is very complicated. However, we have said that lectures are clearly valuable in several specific ways. They can provide a useful overview in every map, as it were, to familiarize you with the mainland features to be encountered during the course. Lectures typically give much more accessible descriptions of theoretical perspectives in their oral presentations that can be found in the academic literature. Whenever there is a rapid pace of progress in theory or practice, lectures play an indispensable part in letting students know the development immediately, usually several years before the new material is included in textbooks. Lastly, lectures are often very useful in allowing you to see directly how exponents of different views build up their arguments. The cues provided by things someone talking in person may seem irrelevant, but these cues are important aids to understanding the subject matter better later.

　　So far we've discussed four study activities and their respective features and roles in higher education. Of course, study activities are not limited to just these four types. There're other activities that are equally important, such as general reading, project learning, etc. We will cover them during our next lecture.

　　2002年英语专业八级考试真题

　　TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (2002)GRADE EIGHT

　　PAPER ONE

　　PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION (40 MIN)

　　In sections A , B and C, you will hear everything ONCE ONLY, listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct response for each question on your Colored Answer Sheet.

　　SECTION A TALK

　　Questions 1 to 5 refer to the talk in this section. At the end of the talk you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the talk.

　　1. According to the passage, during the 18th and 19th centuries cities were small in size mainly because .

　　A. the urban population was stable B. few people lived in cities

　　C. transport was backward D. it was originally planned

　　2. Cities survived in those days largely as a result of .

　　A. the trade activities they undertook

　　B. the agriculture activities in the nearby areas

　　C. their relatively small size

　　D. the non-economic roles they played

　　3. City dwellers were engaged in all the following economic activities EXCEPT ______.

　　A. commerce B. distribution

　　C. processing D. transportation

　　4. Urban people left cities for the following reasons EXCEPT .

　　A. more economic opportunities

　　B. a freer social and political environment

　　C. more educational opportunities

　　D. a more relaxed religious environment

　　5. Why did the early cities fail to grow as quickly as expected throughout the 18th century?

　　A. Because the countryside attracted more people.

　　B. Because cities did not increase in number.

　　C. Because the functions of the cities changed.

　　D. Because the number of city people was stable.

　　-

　　SECTION B INTERVIEW

　　Questions 6 to 10 are based on an interview with an architect. At the end of the interview you will be given 13 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.

　　6. According to Janet, the factor that would most affect negotiation is ____

　　A. English language proficiency

　　B. different cultural practices

　　C. different negotiation tasks

　　D. the international Americanized style

　　7. Janet's attitude towards the Americanized style as a model for business negotiation is ______.

　　A. supportive B. negative C. ambiguous D. cautious

　　8. Which of the following can NOT be seen as a difference between Brazilian and American negotiators?

　　A. Americans prepare more points before negotiations.

　　B. Americans are more straightforward during negotiations.

　　C. Brazilians prefer more eye contact during negotiations.

　　D. Brazilians seek more background information.

　　9. Which group of people seems to be the most straightforward?

　　A. The British. B. Germans.

　　C. Americans. D. Not mentioned.

　　10. Which of the following is NOT characteristic of Japanese negotiators?

　　A. Reserved. B. Prejudiced. C. Polite. D. Prudent.

　　SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

　　Questions 11 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the two questions. Now listen to the news.

　　11. The news item is mainly about

　　A. a call for research papers to be read at the conference

　　B. an international conference on traditional Tibetan medicine

　　C. the number of participants at the conference and their nationalities

　　D. the preparations made by the sponsors for the international conference

　　Question 12 and 13 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 30 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.

　　12. The news item mainly concerns in Hong Kong.

　　A. Internet centres B. an IBM seminar

　　C. e-government D. broadcasting

　　13. The aims of the three policy objectives include all the following EXCEPT

　　A. improvement of government efficiency

　　B. promotion of e-commerce

　　C. integration of service delivery

　　D. formulation of Digital 21 Strategy

　　Questions 14 to 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 30 seconds to answer the two questions. Now listen to the news.

　　14. Which of the following records was the second best time of the year by Donovan Bailey?

　　A. 9.98. B. 9.80. C. 9.91. D. 9.95.

　　15. The record shows that Bailey was .

　　A. still suffering from an injury B. getting back in shape

　　C. unable to compete with Greene D. less confident than before

　　SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING

　　In this section you will hear a mini-lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the lecture, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a 15-minute gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the mini-lecture. Use the blank paper for note-taking. Fill in each of the gaps with one word. You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is both grammatically and semantically acceptable.

　　Study Activities in University

　　In order to help college and university students in the process of learning, four key study activities have been designed and used to encourage them to make knowledge their own.

　　1. Essay writing: central focus of university work esp. in the humanities, e.g. (1)_ .

　　benefits: 1) helping to select interesting content in books and to express understanding.

　　enabling teachers to know progress and to offer (2) .

　　familiarizing students with exam forms.

　　2. Seminars and classroom discussion: another form to internalize knowledge in specialized contexts

　　benefits: 1) (3) enables you to know the effectiveness of and others' response to your speech immediately.

　　Within the same period of time, more topics can be dealt with than in (4) .

　　The use of a broader range of knowledge is encouraged.

　　3. Individual tutorials: a substitute for group discussion

　　format: from teacher (5) to flexible conversation.

　　benefit: encouraging ideas and interaction.

　　4. Lectures: a most (6) used study activity

　　disadvantages: 1) less (7)____ than discussions or tutorial.

　　2) more demanding in note-taking.

　　advantages: 1) providing a general (8) of a subject under discussion.

　　offering more easily understood versions of a theory.

　　updating students on (9) developments.

　　allowing students to follow different (10)_____

　　(1) ______ (2) ______ (3) ______ (4) ______ ( 5 ) ______

　　(6) ______ (7) ______ (8) ______ (9) ______ (10) ______

　　PART II PROOFREADING AND ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN)

　　The following passage contains TEN errors. Each line contains a maximum of one error and three are free from error. In each case, only one word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way.

　　For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.

　　For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.

　　For an unnecessary word, cross out the unnecessary word with a slash “/” and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.

　　If the line is correct, place a V in the blank provided at the end of the line

　　PART II PROOFREADING AND ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN)

　　The following passage contains TEN errors. Each line contains a maximum of one error and three are free from error. In each case, only one word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way.

　　For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.

　　For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.

　　For an unnecessary word, cross out the unnecessary word with a slash “/” and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.

　　If the line is correct, place a V in the blank provided at the end of the line.

　　Example

　　When ^ art museum wants a new exhibit, (1) an

　　It never buys things in finished form and bangs (2) never

　　them on the wall. When a natural history museum (3) ∕

　　wants an exhibition, it must often build it. (4) exhibit

　　There are great impediments to the general use of a standard

　　in pronunciation comparable to that existing in spelling

　　(orthography). One is the fact that pronunciation is learnt

　　'naturally' and consciously, and orthography is learnt (1)_____

　　deliberately and consciously. Large numbers of us, in fact,

　　remain throughout our lives quite unconscious with what (2)_____

　　our speech sounds like when we speak out, and it often (3)_____

　　comes as a shock when we firstly hear a recording of ourselves. (4)_____

　　It is not a voice we recognize at once, whereas our own handwriting

　　is something which we almost always know. We begin the "natural' (5)_____

　　learning of pronunciation long before we start learning to read or

　　write, and in our early years we went on unconsciously imitating and (6)____

　　practicing the pronunciation of those around us for many more hours

　　per every day than we ever have to spend learning even our difficult (7)_____

　　English spelling. This is 'natural', therefore, that our speech-sounds (8)_____

　　should be those of our immediate circle? after all, as we have seen,

　　speech operates as a means of holding a community and (9)_____

　　giving a sense of 'belonging'. We learn quite early to recognize a

　　'stranger', someone who speaks with an accent of a different

　　community - perhaps only a few miles far. (10)_____

　　PART III READING COMPREHENSION (40 MIN)

　　SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)

　　In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages carefully and then mark your answers on your Colored Answer Sheet.

　　TEXT A

　　Do you ever feel as though you spend all your time in meeting?

　　Henry Mintzberg. in his book The Nature of Managerial Work, found that in large organizations managers spent 22 percent of their time at their desk. 6 percent on the telephone. 3 percent on other activities, but a whopping 69 percent in meetings.

　　There is a widely-held but mistaken belief that meetings are for " solving problems" and "making decisions". For a start, the number of people attending a meeting tends to be inversely proportional to their collective ability to reach conclusions and make decisions. And these are the least important elements.

　　Instead hours are devoted to side issues, playing elaborate games with one another. It seems, therefore, that meetings serve some purpose other than just making decisions.

　　All meetings have one thing in common: role-playing. The most formal role is that of chairman. He sets the agenda, and a good chairman will keep the meeting running on time and to the point. Sadly, the other, informal, role-players are often able to gain the upper hand. Chief is the "constant talker", who just loves to hear his or her own voice.

　　Then there are the "can't do" types who want to maintain the status quo. Since they have often been in the organization for a long time, they frequently quote historical experience as an excuse to block change: "It won't work, we tried that last year and it was a disaster. " A more subtle version of the "can't do" type, the "yes, but...", has emerged recently. They have learnt about the need to sound positive, but they still can't bear to have things change.

　　Another whole sub-set of characters are people who love meetings and want them to continue until 5:30 p. m. or beyond. Irrelevant issues are their specialty. They need to call or attend meetings, either to avoid work, or to justify their lack of performance, or simply because they do not have enough to do.

　　Then there are the "counter-dependents", those who usually disagree with everything that is said, particularly if it comes from the chairman or through consensus from the group. These people need to fight authority in whatever form.

　　Meetings can also provide attenders with a sense of identification of their status and power. In this case, managers arrange meetings as a means of communicating to others the boundaries of their exclusive club: who is "in", and who is not.

　　Because so many meetings end in confusion and without a decision, another game is played at the end of meetings, called reaching a false consensus. Since it is important for the chairman to appear successful in problem-solving and making a decision, the group reaches a false consensus. Everyone is happy, having spent their time productively. The reality is that the decision is so ambiguous that it is never acted upon, or, if it is, there is continuing conflict, for which another meeting is necessary. In the end, meetings provide the opportunity for social intercourse, to engage in battle in front of our bosses, to avoid unpleasant or unsatisfying work, to highlight our social status and identity. They are. in fact, a necessary thought not necessarily productive psychological sideshow. Perhaps it is our civilized way to moderating, if not preventing, change.

　　16. On role-playing, the passage seems to indicate that chairman .

　　A. talks as much as participants

　　B. is usually a "constant talkers"

　　C. prefers to take the role of an observer

　　D. is frequently outshone by participants

　　17. Which of the following is NOT a distinct characteristic of the three types of participants?

　　A. Submissiveness. B. Stubbornness.

　　C. Disobedience. D. Lack of focus.

　　18. The passage suggests that a false consensus was reached at the end of a meeting in order to .

　　A. make room for another meeting

　　B. bring an illusory sense of achievement

　　C. highlight the importance of a meeting

　　D. go ahead with the agreed programme

　　TEXT B

　　Cooperative competition. Competitive cooperation. Confused? Airline alliances have travelers scratching their heads over what's going on in the skies. Some folks view alliances as a blessing to travelers, offering seamless travel, reduced fares and enhanced frequent-flyer benefits. Others see a conspiracy of big business, causing decreased competition, increased fares and fewer choices. Whatever your opinion, there's no escaping airline alliances: the marketing hype is unrelenting, with each of the two mega-groupings. Oneworld and Star Alliance, promoting itself as the best choice for all travelers. And, even if you turn away from their ads, chances are they will figure in any of your travel plans. By the end of the year, Oneworld and Star Alliance will between them control more than 40% of the traffic in the sky. Some pundits predict that figure will be more like 75% in 10 years.

　　But why, after years of often ferocious competition, have airlines decided to band together? Let's just say the timing is mutually convenient. North American airlines, having exhausted all means of earning customer loyalty at home, have been looking for ways to reach out to foreign flyers. Asian carriers are still hurting from the region-wide economic downturn that began two years ago — just when some of the airlineswere taking delivery of new aircraft. Alliances also allow carriers to cut costs and increase profits by pooling manpower resources on the ground (rather than each airline maintaining its own ground crew) and code-sharing — the practice of two partners selling tickets and operating only one aircraft.

　　So alliances are terrific for airlines - but are they good for the passenger? Absolutely, say the airlines: think to the lounges, the joint FFP (frequent flyer programme) benefits, the round-the-world fares, and the global service networks. Then there's the promise of "seamless" travel: the ability to, say, travel form Singapore to Rome to New York to Rio de Janiero, all on one ticket, without having to wait hours for connections or worry about your bags. Sounds Utopian? Peter Buecking, Cathay Pacific's director of sales and marketing, thinks that seamless travel is still evolving. "It's fair to say that these links are only in their infancy. The key to seamlessness rests in infrastructure and information sharing. We're working on this." Henry Ma, spokesperson for Star Alliance in Hong Kong, lists some of the other benefits for consumers: "Global travelers have an easier time making connections and planning their itineraries." Ma claims alliances also assure passengers consistent service standards.

　　Critics of alliances say the much-touted benefits to the consumer are mostly pie in the sky, that alliances are all about reducing costs for the airlines, rationalizing services and running joint marketing programmes. Jeff Blyskal, associate editor of Consumer Reports magazine, says the promotional ballyhoo over alliances is much ado about nothing. "I don't see much of a gain for consumers: alliances are just a marketing gimmick. And as far as seamless travel goes, I'll believe it when I see it. Most airlines can't even get their own connections under control, let alone coordinate with another airline."

　　Blyskal believes alliances will ultimately result in decreased flight choices and increased costs for consumers. Instead of two airlines competing and each operating a flight on the same route at 70% capacity, the allied pair will share the route and run one full flight. Since fewer seats will be available, passengers will be obliged to pay more for tickets.

　　The truth about alliances and their merits probably lies somewhere between the travel Utopia presented by the players and the evil empires portrayed by their critics. And how much they affect you depends on what kind of traveler you are.

　　Those who have already made the elite grade in the FFP of a major airline stand to benefit the most when it joins an alliance: then they enjoy the FFP perks and advantages on any and all of the member carriers. For example, if you're a Marco Polo Club "gold" member of Cathay Pacific's Asia Miles FFP. you will automatically be treated as a valuable customer by all members, of one world, of which Cathay Pacific is a member — even if you’ve never flown with them before.

　　For those who haven't made the top grade in any FFP, alliances might be a way of simplifying the earning of frequent flyer miles. For example, I belong to United Airline's Mileage Plus and generally fly less than 25 000 miles a year. But I earn miles with every flight I take on Star Alliance member — All Nippon Airways and Thai j Airways.

　　If you fly less than I do. you might be smarter to stay out of the FFP game altogether. Hunt for bargains when booking flights and you might be able to save enough to take that extra trip any way. The only real benefit infrequent flyers can draw from an alliance is an inexpensive round-the-world fare.

　　The bottom line: for all the marketing hype, alliances aren't all things to all people-but everybody can get some benefit out of them.

　　19. Which is the best word to describe air traveler's reaction to airline alliances?

　　A. Delight. B. Indifference. C. Objection. D. Puzzlement.

　　20. According to the passage, setting up airline alliances will chiefly benefit ___

　　A. North American airlines and their domestic travelers

　　B. North American airlines and their foreign counterparts

　　C. Asian airlines and their foreign travelers

　　D. Asian airlines and their domestic travelers

　　Which of the following is NOT a perceived advantage of alliances?

　　A. Baggage allowance. B. Passenger Comfort.

　　C. Convenience. D. Quality.

　　One disadvantage of alliances foreseen by the critics is that air travel may be more expensive as a result of _____.

　　A. less convenience B. higher operation costs

　　C. less competition D. more joint marketing

　　23. According to the passage, which of the following categories of travelers will gain most from airline alliances?

　　A. Travelers who fly frequently economy class.

　　B. Travelers who fly frequently business class.

　　C. Travelers who fly occasionally during holidays.

　　D. Travelers who fly economy class once in a while.

　　TEXT C

　　It is nothing new that English use is on the rise around the world, especially in business circles. This also happens in France, the headquarters of the global battle against American cultural hegemony. If French guys are giving in to English, something really big must be going on. And something big is going on.

　　Partly, it's that American hegemony. Didier Benchimol, CEO of a French e-commerce software company, feels compelled to speak English perfectly because the Internet software business is dominated by Americans. He and other French businessmen also have to speak English because they want to get their message out to American investors, possessors of the world's deepest pockets.

　　The triumph of English in France and elsewhere in Europe, however, may rest on something more enduring. As they become entwined with each other politically and economically, Europeans need a way to talk to one another and to the rest of the world. And for a number of reasons, they've decided upon English as their common tongue.

　　So when German chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst merged with French competitor Rhone-Poulenc last year, the companies chose the vaguely Latinate Aventis as the new company name - and settled on English as the company's common language. When monetary policymakers from around Europe began meeting at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt last year to set interest rates for the new Euroland, they held their deliberations in English. Even the European Commission. with 11 official languages and a traditionally French-speaking bureaucracy. effectively switched over to English as its working language last year.

　　How did this happen? One school attributes English's great success to the sheer weight of its merit. It's a Germanic language, brought to Britain around the fifth century A. D. During the four centuries of French-speaking rule that followed Norman Conquest of 1066, the language morphed into something else entirely. French words were added wholesale, and most of the complications of Germanic grammar were shed while few of the complications of French were added. The result is a language with a huge vocabulary and a simple grammar that can express most things more efficiently than either of its parents. What's more, English has remained ungoverned and open to change — foreign words, coinages, and grammatical shifts — in a way that French, ruled by the purist Academic Francaise, has not.

　　So it's a swell language, especially for business. But the rise of English over the past few centuries clearly owes at least as much to history and economics as to the language's ability to economically express the concept win-win. What happened is that the competition first Latin, then French, then, briefly, German — faded with the waning of the political, economic, and military fortunes of, respectively, the Catholic Church, France, and Germany. All along, English was increasing in importance: Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and London the world's most important financial center, which made English a key language for business. England's colonies around the world also made it the language with the most global reach. And as that former colony the US rose to the status of the world's preeminent political, economic, military, and cultural power, English became the obvious second language to learn.

　　In the 1990s more and more Europeans found themselves forced to use English. The last generation of business and government leaders who hadn't studied English in school was leaving the stage. The European Community was adding new members and evolving from a paper-shuffling club into a serious regional government that would need a single common language if it were ever to get anything done. Meanwhile, economic barriers between European nations have been disappearing, meaning that more and more companies are beginning to look at the whole continent as their domestic market. And then the Internet came along.

　　The Net had two big impacts. One was that it was an exciting, potentially lucrative new industry had its roots in the US, so if you wanted to get in on it, you had to speak some English. The other was that by surfing the Web, Europeans who had previously encountered English only in school and in pop songs were now coming into contact with it daily.

　　None of this means English has taken over European life. According to the European Union, 47% of Western Europeans (including the British and Irish) speak English well enough to carry on a conversation. That's a lot more than those who can speak German (32%) or French (28%), but it still means more Europeans don't speak the language. If you want to sell shampoo or cell phones, you have to do it in French or German or Spanish or Greek. Even the US and British media companies that stand to benefit most from the spread of English have been hedging their bets — CNN broadcasts in Spanish; the Financial Times has recently launched a daily German-language edition.

　　But just look at who speaks English. 77% Western European college students, 69% of managers, and 54% of those aged 15 to 24. In the secondary schools of the European Union's non-English-speaking countries, 91% of students study English, all of which means that the transition to English as the language of European business hasn't been all that traumatic, and it's only going to get easier in the future.

　　24. In the author's opinion, what really underlies the rising status of English in France and Europe is____ .

　　A. American dominance in the Internet software business

　　B. a practical need for effective communication among Europeans

　　C. Europeans' eagerness to do business with American businessmen

　　D. the recent trend for foreign companies to merge with each other

　　25. Europeans began to favor English for all the following reasons EXCEPT its____ .

　　A. inherent linguistic properties

　　B. association with the business world

　　C. links with the United States

　　D. disassociation from political changes

　　26. Which of the following statements forecasts the continuous rise of English in the future?

　　A. About half of Western Europeans are now proficient in English.

　　B. US and British media companies are operating in Western Europe.

　　C. Most secondary school students in Europe study English.

　　D. Most Europeans continue to use their own language.

　　27. The passage mainly examines the factors related to .

　　A. the rising status of English in Europe

　　B. English learning in non-English-speaking E. U. nations

　　C. the preference for English by European businessmen

　　D. the switch from French to English in European Commission

　　TEXT D

　　As humankind moves into the third millennium, it can rightfully claim to have broken new ground in its age-old quest to master the environment. The fantastic achievements of modern technology and the speed at which scientific discoveries are translated into technological applications attest to the triumph of human endeavor.

　　At the same time, however, some of these applications threaten to unleash forces over which we have no control. In other words, the new technology Man now believes allows him to dominate this wider cosmos could well be a Frankenstein monster waiting to turn on its master.

　　This is an entirely new situation that promises to change many of the perceptions governing life on the planet. The most acute challenges facing the future are likely to not only those pitting man against his fellow man, but those involving humankind's struggle to preserve the environment and ensure the sustainability of life on earth.

　　A conflict waged to ensure the survival of the human species is bound to bring humans closer together. Technological progress has thus proved to be a double-edged sword, giving rise to a new form of conflict: a clash between Man and Nature.

　　The new conflict is more dangerous than the traditional one between man and his fellow man, where the protagonists at least shared a common language.

　　Nature reacts with weather disturbances, with storms and earthquakes, with mutant viruses and bacteria — that is, with phenomena having no apparent cause and effect relationship with the modern technology that supposedly triggers them.

　　As technology becomes ever more potent and Nature reacts ever more violently, there is an urgent need to rethink how best to deal with the growing contradictions between Man and Nature.

　　For a start, the planet, and hence all its inhabitants, must be perceived as an integral whole, not as a dichotomous mass divided geographically into the rich and developed and the poor and underdeveloped.

　　Today, globalization encompasses the whole world and deals with it as an integral unit. It is no longer possible to say that conflict has shifted from its traditional east-west axis to a north-south axis. The real divide today is between summit and base, between the higher echelons of the international political structure and its grassroots level, between governments and NGOs, between state and civil society, between public and private enterprise.

　　The mesh structure is particularly obvious on the Internet. While it is true that to date the Internet seems to be favoring the most developed sectors of the international community over the less developed, this need not always be the case. Indeed, it could eventually overcome the disparities between the privileged and the underdeveloped.

　　On the other hand, the macro-world in which we live is exposed to distortions because of the unpredictable side-effects of a micro-world we do not and cannot totally control.

　　This raises the need for a global system of checks and balances, for mandatory rules and constraints in our dealings with Nature, in short, for a new type of veto designed to manage what is increasingly becoming a main contradiction of our time: the one between technology and ecology.

　　A new type of international machinery must be set in place to cope with the new challenges. We need a new look at the harnessing of scientific discoveries, to maximize their positive effects for the promotion of humanity as a whole and to minimize their negative effects. We need an authority with veto powers to forbid practices conducive to decreasing the ozone hole, the propagation of AIDS, global warming, desertification — an authority that will tackle such global problems.

　　There should be no discontinuity in the global machinery responsible for world order. The UN in its present form may fall far short of what is required of it. and it may be undemocratic and detrimental to most citizens in the world, but its absence would be worse. And so we have to hold on to the international organization even as we push forward for its complete restructuring.

　　Our best hope would be that the functions of the present United Nations are gradually taken over by the new machinery of veto power representing genuine democratic globalization.

　　28. The mention of Man's victory over Nature at the beginning of the passage is to highlight .

　　A. a new form of conflict B. Man's creative powers

　　C. the role of modern technology D. Man's ground-breaking work

　　29. According to the passage, which is NOT a responsibility of the proposed international authority?

　　A. Monitoring effects of scientific discoveries.

　　B. Dealing with worldwide environmental issues.

　　C. Vetoing human attempts to conquer Nature.

　　D. Authorizing efforts to improve human health.

　　30. When commenting on the present role of the UN, the author expresses his ____ .

　　A. dissatisfaction B. disillusionment

　　C. objection D. doubt

　　SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING (10 MIN)

　　In this section there are seven passages with ten multiple-choice questions. Skim or scan them as required and then mark your answers on your Colored Answer Sheet.

　　TEXTE

　　First read the following question.

　　31. What is the most appropriate topic of the following passage?

　　A. Strikes. B. Pensions.

　　C. Retirement Ages. D. Government decisions.

　　Now go through TEXT E quickly to answer question 31.

　　In addition to the national social security system, 17 special pension schemes are among the social advantages that government employees are not prepared to give up.

　　Under the national scheme, retirement is at the age of 65, whereas the special schemes offer retirement at 55 or even 50.

　　Most of the pension schemes are in the red and have to be topped up by the state. The total state contribution in 1994 was F125 billion ($25 billion).

　　The prime minister says he wants to keep the special schemes. There are three solutions for keeping them afloat: lengthening the contribution period, increasing contributions, or reducing the pensions paid out. The government chose the first solution in the plan that it announced on November 15. Private sector employees were required in 1993 to contribute for 40 instead of 37.5 years, in order to qualify for a full pension. State employees could still retire after 37.5 years' service provided they had reached the age limit.

　　The prime minister's announcement touched off strikes on the railways. Paris's transport services and government departments. Facing increasing opposition to this proposal, the prime minister said on December 5 that working more years would no longer be a condition for reforming the special pension schemes.

　　A government commission that will examine pensions will, however, be free to propose changes in the retirement age in certain professions. But it will take into consideration the hardships involved in the work and the constraints of working hours.

　　At the moment, the minimum retirement age is 60 - as in the private sector before 1983 — for 65 percent of public service employees. It is 55, or even 50, for 35 percent of employees considered to be doing work " involving special risks or exceptional fatigue".

　　Primary school teachers can retire at 55, but the limit for new. better qualified recruits is 60. Postal workers at sorting offices can retire at 55. The retiring age for police officers are 50, prison officers 50, nurses 55, and railway men 50 and 55 for others. The 30 000 employees of the Paris Metro have an average retirement age of 53.

　　Two-thirds of the "active" employees and those working in conditions that can damage health in the public gas and electric utility retire at 55. Retirement age for notary's clerks is 55 for women, and 60 for men. For miners, retirement is at 55.

　　Comparing the national pension scheme and the special schemes is not easy, because state employees receive bonuses — some of them substantial — which are not included in calculating their contributions or their pensions.

　　TEXT F

　　First read the following question.

　　32. In the following passage the author intends to _____ .

　　A. explain how the Gulf Stream is formed

　　B. compare global warming with global cooling

　　C. explain the composition of the sea currents

　　D. deliver a warning of a coming ice age

　　Now go through TEXT F quickly to answer question 32.

　　It seems obvious that trapping more of the sun's heat will make the planet hotter. But what seems obvious isn't always true. According to some respected scientists, there is a chance that global warming could plunge us into, of all things, an ice age.

　　The argument hinges on the Gulf Stream, the ocean current that brings warm surface water north and east and heats Europe. As it travels, some of the water evaporates; what's left is saltier and thus denser. Eventually the dense surface water sinks to the sea bottom, where it flows back southward. And then, near the equator, warm, fresh water from tropical rivers and rain dilutes the salt once again. allowing the water to rise to the surface, warm up and begin flowing north again.

　　But with global warming, melting ice from Greenland and the Arctic Ocean could pump fresh water into the North Atlantic? so could the increased rainfall predicted for northern latitudes in a warmer world. Result: the Gulf Stream's water wouldn't get saltier after all and wouldn't sink so easily. Without adequate re-supply, the southerly underwater current would stop, and the Gulf Stream would in turn be shut off.

　　If that happens. Europe will get very cold. Rome is. after all, at the same latitude as Chicago, and Paris is about as far north as North Dakota. More snow will fall, and the bright snow cover will reflect more of the sun's energy back into space, making life even chillier. Beyond that, the Gulf Stream is tied into other ocean currents, and shutting it down could rearrange things in a way that would cause less overall evaporation.

　　Worst of all, the experts believe, such changes could come on with astonishing speed — perhaps within a decade or less. And while we might have a great deal of trouble adjusting to a climate that gets 2°C warmer over the next century, an ice age by mid-century would be unimaginably devastating. The lingering uncertainty about whether our relentless production of greenhouse gases will keep heating our planet or ultimately cool it suggests that we should make a better effort to leave the earth's thermostat alone.

　　TEXT G

　　First read the following question.

　　33. What is the main theme of the following passage?

　　A. Strengths of paper books over E-books.

　　B. Projected extinction of paper books.

　　C. Market prospects of E-books.

　　D. The history of paper books.

　　Now go through TEXT G quickly to answer question 33.

　　Experts predict that the printed, paper and glue book will be rendered obsolete by electronic text delivery systems, of which one; the Microsoft Reader, is already on the market, offering "'books" on a pocket PC manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. This is not impossible; already much of the written communication that used to be handled by letters, newspapers and magazines has shifted to computer screens and to the vast digital library available over the Internet. If the worst comes true and the paper book joins the papyrus scroll and parchment codex in extinction, we will miss, I predict, a number of things about it.

　　The book as furniture. Shelved rows of books warm and brighten the starkest room. By bedside and easy chair, books promise a cozy, swift and silent release from this world into another. For ease of access and speed of storage, books are tough to beat.

　　The book as sensual pleasure. Smaller than a breadbox, bigger than a TV remote, the average book fits into the human hand with a seductive nestling, a kiss of texture, whether of cover cloth, glazed jacket or flexible paperback. The weight can rest on the little finger of the right hand for hours without strain, while the thumb holds the pages open and the fingers of the other hand turn them.

　　The rectangular block of type, a product of five and a half centuries of printers' lore, yields to decipherment so gently that one is scarcely aware of the difference immersing oneself in an imaginary world and scanning the furniture of one's own room.

　　The book as souvenir. One's collection comes to symbolize the contents of one's mind. Books read in childhood, in yearning adolescence, at college and in the first self-conscious years of adulthood travel along, often, with readers as they move from house to house. My mother's college texts sat untouched in a corner of our country bookcase.

　　The bulk of my own college books are still with me, rarely consulted but always there, reminders of moments, of stages, in a pilgrimage. The decades since add their own drifts and strata of volumes read or half read or intended to be read. Books preserve, daintily, the redolence of their first reading — this beach, that apartment, that summer afternoon, this flight to Indonesia.

　　Books as ballast. As movers and the moved both know, books are heavy freight, the weight of refrigerators and sofas broken up into cardboard boxes. They make us think twice about changing addresses. How many aging couples have decided to stay put because they can't imagine what to do with the books? How many divorces have been forestalled by love of the jointly acquired library?

　　Books hold our beams down. They act as counterweight to our fickle and flighty natures. In comparison, any electronic text delivery device would lack substance. Further, speaking of obsolescence, it would be outdated in a year and within 15 years as inoperable as my formerly treasured Wang word processor from the mid-80's. Electronic equals immaterial. Without books, we might melt into the airwaves, and be just another set of blips.

　　TEXT H

　　First read the following question.

　　34. The passage intends primarily to in some Asian cities.

　　A. explain how porters work

　　B. introduce top-end eateries

　　C. provide advice on tipping

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